


End of the Line (For Better or For Worse)

by Pippin



Series: Christmas Presents 2015 [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Captain America: The First Avenger, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Tent fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 22:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5433536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippin/pseuds/Pippin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things change, but others do not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of the Line (For Better or For Worse)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FlyByNightGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyByNightGirl/gifts).



Things had been the same way for so long, and now they were all turned on their head.  Before, Steve had been smaller and more fragile and so much more liable to break, and Bucky had been his rock.  But now Steve was Captain America and Bucky tried so hard to hide it but he was the one made of glass.  Whatever Hydra had done to him before Steve had pulled him off that table had left permanent damage, damage that Steve could see no matter how hard Bucky tried to hide it.

The rest of the Commandos were fooled by Bucky’s act, but they hadn’t known him for nearly as long as Steve had.  They didn’t know his tells, the little things he did (or didn’t do) when he wasn’t okay.

Steve probably knew them too well.

He knew that he really shouldn’t watch Bucky the way that he did.  He shouldn’t want Bucky the way he did.  He shouldn’t even think about Bucky the way he did.  It was a crime that would get him dishonorably discharged if he was lucky and arrested or court martialed if he wasn’t.  But it wasn’t like he could ever admit to being in love with his best friend.  It was both illegal and unrequited—he didn’t know which was worse.

But he couldn’t think about himself, not when Bucky was in such bad condition.  It hadn’t impacted Bucky’s performance in the field yet, but Steve knew that he couldn’t let it slide just because Bucky seemed to be doing okay.  Bucky was eventually going to slip up out on a mission, and he had to talk to Bucky, and sooner rather than later.

* * *

They were out in the field when the opportunity presented itself, in the form of the inevitable slip in Bucky’s performance.  It had been a simple enough assignment, nothing that they hadn’t already done a million times, but this time with one major hitch.

Steve had been trying to get the door opened when he felt the cold metal of a gun barrel on the back of his neck.  The Hydra soldier had snuck up on him, something only possible because he had been trusting Bucky to watch his six.

Steve didn’t dare move.  He was a lot more durable than the average soldier, but he knew better than to think that he was immortal, and a shot to the back of the head and neck would definitely kill him.  There was nothing he could do—he was dead either way.  As fast as he was, he wasn’t faster than a bullet, and the Hydra lackey would have that bullet in his spine before he even finished turning around.

Steve’s few moments of silent internal panic were cut off by what he recognized as the crack of Bucky’s sniper rifle and the pressure and touch of the gun vanishing from the back of his neck.  It was a relief, but, at the same time, it was a problem.  There should never have been that sensation at all, let alone for how long it had remained there.  If Bucky hadn’t gotten his act together, Steve would have been dead.

He said nothing when he had gotten the door open and was rejoined by the rest of the Commandos, knowing that it wouldn’t do any good and would only distract from the task at hand.

It was a different story altogether, though, when they returned to their camp.  They had another big mission the next day, and so couldn’t be picked up until after that one.

“You look distracted, Cap,” Dugan said as he poked idly at the fire with a stick.  “Is everything okay?”

Steve frowned.  “I just need to talk to Sergeant Barnes for a moment.  In private.”

“‘ _Sergent Barnes.’ Quelque chose ne va vraiment pas bien, alors_ ,” Dernier muttered to Jones.  “ _Il ne lui qui appelle. Ils sont amis depuis si longtemps qu'il est toujours ‘Bucky’ ou juste ‘Buck.’ Il ya un problème avec Cap et son meilleur ami ..._ ”

Steve wasn’t sure what Dernier had said, but he had understood Cap and the variations on Bucky’s name.  He narrowed his eyes.  “The business between myself and Sergeant Barnes is nothing for any of you to worry about.  It’s private.”  He stood and started to head for his tent, then turned to glance over his shoulder at Bucky, who hadn’t moved.  “Sergeant Barnes,” he snapped, then ducked into his tent.

It was a few minutes before Bucky joined him, a few minutes in which Steve started to wonder if he was going to have to go drag his best friend and second in command from beside the fire and into the tent.

Right before he headed out to do just that, Bucky slipped silently into the tent.  “What is it, _Captain Rogers_?” he asked mockingly, angrily.

Steve shook his head sternly.  “None of that.  This is serious.”

“Serious enough that you can’t even use my name?”

Steve took a deep breath.  “Buck.  It’s about—it’s about Hydra and whatever the hell they did to you.”

“I told you before, I don’t want to talk about it,” Bucky said furiously.

“And I’m not going to make you.”  Steve raised a hand to cut off whatever Bucky’s reply was going to be.  “I care what they did, of course, but I’m not going to force any information out of you.  It’s not my problem to worry about.  It gets to be my problem, however, when it affects our missions.  You’ve been distracted, and I understand that, but, until today, it had never affected your shooting or your focus in the field.  Today, however, it did, and I nearly died because of it.  Today it was me, but next time it could be any of us.  I know full well that you were given the option to go home after I rescued you, and you chose to stay and follow me.  But I can’t put the lives of my men at risk, and if I feel that you are jeopardizing missions I can and will send you back to Brooklyn and get a new sniper for the team.  Do I make myself clear?”

Bucky narrowed his eyes, clearly still angry.   “You’re bluffing.”

“You know that I can’t bluff—you tried to teach me to play poker, after all.  As much as you’re my best friend and I care for you, I can’t put the lives of everyone else here on the line because I have a sentimental attachment to you.  I don’t want to send you home, but as your commanding officer I put you in for an honorable discharge on the grounds of psychological trauma affecting your performance and jeopardizing your fellow soldiers.”

Steve felt terrible pulling rank on Bucky, but it had to be done.  And he did mean all of it—he really wasn’t bluffing.

“Fine,” Bucky snapped.  “I’ll pull my shit together.  Happy now, Captain?”  With that he turned sharply and ducked back under the tent flap.

Steve tried to grab him, but he wasn’t fast enough.  Instead, he just followed Bucky, who was vanishing into the woods surrounding the camp.

“Buck,” he called after him, following and ignoring the rest of his Commandos.

“Can’t a guy take a piss in peace, Rogers,” Bucky snapped back, glaring at Steve.

“I know you better than that,” Steve said.  “You’re running away.  You always did that when we fought before—I asked you why once, and you said you were afraid.  That there was something inside of you that you barely recognized when you were angry and you didn’t want to hurt me.  I was so easy to break, you would say, and you were terrified that that darkness inside of you would make you hurt me.  Look at me, Buck.  You can’t hurt me now.  So what in the world are you so scared of?”

“Hydra took that darkness and amplified it!” Bucky shouted back.  “God, Steve, you don’t understand.  They wanted their own version of _you_.  I don’t know what the fuck they put in me, but I didn’t understand it until I saw you.  Whatever that doctor did, it worked the way he wanted because you’re so good.  Me, though—I’m not good.  And Zola fixed me up physically—don’t you think that I recovered far faster than I should have done?  I could barely walk when you got me off that fucking table, but then crossing that stupid rail wasn’t a problem—but he also took my darkness and made it so much bigger.  And he…he made me realize…” 

His voice broke, and Steve realized with a start that Bucky was crying.  “You don’t have to tell me, Buck.”

Bucky tried to glare back, but his watery eyes cut the effect.  “Yeah, I do.  You deserve to know.”

“Maybe I do, but not here.  Can we go back to my tent?”

Bucky nodded.  “Yeah.  I…we can do that.”

The Commandos shut up abruptly when Steve and Bucky passed back through by the fire, but Steve ignored it. 

Once they were back in the tent, Steve sat on his cot, which, as usual, creaked alarmingly under his weight.  He ignored it.  “So.  What is it that you’re so adamant you have to tell me?”

“He made me realize that I don’t deserve you.”  Bucky’s voice was dead, a stark contrast from his earlier passionate shouting, and he was facing away from Steve.  “You’re so good and I’m the exact opposite.  You see so much in me that isn’t there, and I don’t deserve you.”

“Don’t say that,” Steve began, but was cut off when Bucky whirled around.

“You don’t know anything, Steve.  You don’t understand the kind of sickness I have.”

“Then tell me.”

“When I said I don’t deserve you, I don’t mean as a friend.  Well, that too, I suppose, since that was the best I’ll ever be able to get, and I’m going to lose that.”

Steve raised his eyebrows.  “You’re putting off the point.”

“All those men, at the docks and the yard and things, the ones that you hurry past just like the good Catholic boy you are, the ones that have a certain perversion to them—the ones that hide in dark alleys not with a dame, but with other men—you remember them?”

Steve nodded slowly, heart about to pound right out of his chest.  It sounded like Bucky knew his biggest secret, and he didn’t know what to make of that.

“I’m like them.”

“I’m so sor—wait, _what_?”

Bucky looked confused.  “You lost me Stevie.”

“You’re saying that _you_ like other guys like that?”

Bucky looked down.  “Yeah.  I’m so sorry that I’ve ruined everything like this, Steve.  It’s just that everything with Zola and thinking I was going to die made me realize that I had to tell you.”

“Buck.  I thought that you were going to say something else completely.  I thought that maybe you were going to tell me that you had seen _me_ down there before, on my knees or bent over a barrel—I did it often enough.”

Bucky looked completely taken aback.  “You were down there?  You’re the last person I would have— _why_?”

“Since the only person I was interested only liked dames, I thought, that was the only way for me to get my fix.  You teased me often enough for being inexperienced, but I couldn’t tell you that I had plenty of experience—just with the wrong gender.”

Bucky shook his head.  “We’re going to talk about _that_ later.  But that was only half of what I wanted to tell you.  The other half—God, Steve, I’ve been head over heels for you for as long as I can remember.”

“The only person I was interested in only liked dames, I thought,” Steve repeated.

“Yeah, you said that already.  Lucky bastard, whoever he is.”  Bucky was facing away from Steve again, but the latter could hear the hurt clear in his voice.

“I _thought_.  Found out real recent that I was mistaken.”

Bucky made a hurt sound, and Steve sat on his cot in silence, waiting for Bucky to say anything else.

Instead of saying anything, he turned to face Steve, a question clear on his face.  “You said you found out real recent.  But you haven’t seen anyone from Brooklyn for nearly a year and a half, have you?”

“Bar one person,” Steve said agreeably, then burst out laughing as Bucky looked murderous.  “Oh my god, Buck, really?”

Bucky’s expression changed from angry to confused in a heartbeat.  “What?”

“The only person I’ve seen from back home recently is _you_.”

“I—me—what?”

“You said that you’ve been head over heels for me for ages.  The feeling’s mutual.”

“Oh.”

The sheer understatement held in that one word had both men in stitches for a good few minutes.  Bucky calmed down first and looked at Steve steadily.

“So, as it turns out, you’re the one with experience in this category.  What next?”

“First of all, I’m not sleeping with you tonight.”  Bucky looked crestfallen, and Steve rushed to explain.  “I don’t want to do that in the middle of the war, when it has to be rushed.  I want to be able to take our time and do it right. As for kissing, though, I’ve only kissed a small handful of dames, but it’s the same no matter which gender.  And I’ve heard the rumors that you’re a great kisser.”

* * *

The rumors turned out to be true.

* * *

The next day Bucky Barnes became another of the 407,300 American deaths in World War Two.

* * *

A week later, Steve Rogers followed him

 _‘Cause I’m with you to the end of the line_.

**Author's Note:**

> This...this turned out a lot more angsty than I had planned. Oops.
> 
> This is another of my Christmas present oneshots, this time for Cip. She had asked for tent drama and mutual pining. I hope this is good!


End file.
